THE NEW YORKER 25 I 1 ----...... 7 ----- -. Q 7ft Ð" r ? I / I r )/ y/y " / ,12, ?t I . '--1 /' of 1939, Tokio had the third largest population in the world, crammed in to a city which was the world's eighth in area. It has been the capital of Japan for only seventy-five years. Tokio lies in about the same latitude as Norfolk and has mean temperatures about like those of New Y or k City, hut the climate is much V\Torse hecause of the high humidity. Summer is divided into early and late periods called tsuyu and i " d d " d " d I " (j oyo- amp avs an og (ays. The suicide rate is highest during tsuyu. The Japanese earthquake center is in the sea near Tokio, and on an average the city has four slight tremors a day. T okio has comparatively few telephones (about as many as Pitts- burgh) but only one Tokio family in four lacks a radio. The last time any- body counted, there were two hundred and thirty-eight daily newspapers in T okio and thirty thousand teachers of flower arrangement Most houses in Tokio are unnum- bered. If they are numbered, the num- her is based on when the place was built -the oldest house on the street is No.1, and so on As most of the little streets in the city aren't named, one J ap trying to find the home of another J ap in a . . strange neighbor hood has a hell of a time. He generally does the best he can using trolley stops and local landmarks as guideposts, and then winds up by asking at the nearest police station. The streetcar conductors are girls, and they make a point of thanking each passenger as he gets off. Y oshiwara, the neighbor- hood of prostitutes, is rather unroman- tic; for instance, all the houses have barkers out in front. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for a prostitute to set up shop at a neighborhood street fair, right next to a shooting gallery or Bingo game. The Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was somewhat run down when last heard from but was still the best Tokio had to offer. It was run on the Occidental rather than the Japanese plan, and consequently didn't supply its guests with kimonos, slippers, and toothbrushes, as was the general cus- tom. The departmen t stores in T okio are really something. For years, going shop- ping has been the biggest adventure the city has had to offer the average female Japanese, and the stores, at last accounts, were shooting the works, with roof gar- dens, monkey cages, and other come- ons. About the nicest thing a mother could do for her little hoy before the " war was buy him an Eton suit. The big- gest department store is run by the Mit- sui family, who control thirty-two per cent of Japan's retail trade. The store is supposed to be modelled on the orig- inal John Wanamaker's, but that Phila- delphia atmosphere proved pretty hard to recapture. D p to Pearl Harhor, the Tokio cos- mopolites used to patronize milk bars, as well as cafés that served a very up-to- date American drink-room-tempera- ture coffee with condensed milk in it. Exhibitions of fireworks are a popular diversion in T okio; often as not, they're given before sundown, the Japanese be- ing willing to forego the visual entertain- ment. You can, or could, buy in T okio a Camemhert cheese made by a colony of Trappist monks. Popeye used to be a great favorite of T okio movie audi- ences. Another popular line of enter- tainment was all-girl musical shows fea- turing American songs with Japanese lyrics. Most upper-class T okio houses have one room furnished in American Grand Rapids style. That's all we know about T okio, except that horse racing there is controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture and F orestr and that there is a ginger market where all the ginger